Understanding learners` self-assessment and self-feedback on their foreign language speaking performance

Abstract

This study examines university learners’ self-assessment and self-feedback on\r\nperformance as captured in audio files from a foreign language speaking test. The\r\nlearners were guided to listen, transcribe and analyse their own speaking samples,\r\nas well as propose future actions for improvement. Content of learners’\r\nself-feedback was scrutinised against a feedback model, with data coded into\r\nvarious feedback categories as stipulated in the model for analysis. Results\r\nindicated that learners’ self-feedback was far reaching and multifaceted. Through\r\nself-feedback, learners identified discrepancies, answered feed up, feedback and\r\nfeed forward questions, and inspected performance at task, process, selfregulation\r\nand self levels. Much of the feedback involved reflections on past\r\nlearning history, other areas of learning, deviation of performance from preparation\r\nand learner personality traits. The self-feedback went largely beyond most\r\nteachers’ feedback capacity and bore great potential for learning and instruction.\r\nIn particular, contrary to theoretical presumptions, self-level feedback seemed\r\nquite enlightening. Whether the observed quality self-feedback could actually\r\nhelp learners improve their performance, however, was not clear. It was suggested\r\nthat some teachers’ time and effort be directed to the endeavour of facilitating\r\nlearners’ self-assessment and self-feedback. Learners’ self-feedback capability\r\nshould also be explored further in the development of relevant pedagogies and\r\ntheories.